191: WINNER: NONE

00:00SPEAKER- Brad, you ever make watermelon teeth?

00:02SPEAKER- I'm sorry, what?

00:04SPEAKER- You know, watermelon teeth.

00:05SPEAKERYou take the watermelon rind.

00:07SPEAKER- Can I? - Yeah.

00:09SPEAKER- Can I stop for a minute and ask,

00:11SPEAKERmaybe the audience can help crowdsource some data,

00:13SPEAKERhow many of these cold opens begin

00:15SPEAKERwith some level of incredulous on my part?

00:17SPEAKER- It's probably 50%, I would guess,

00:18SPEAKER'cause it's either incredulous on your part

00:20SPEAKERor like surprised and excited on my part, right?

00:23SPEAKER- Some variation of I'm sorry, what?

00:25SPEAKERI'm sorry, what?

00:26SPEAKER- No, watermelon teeth.

00:27SPEAKERSo watermelon teeth, you take the rind

00:30SPEAKERand you slice a little thin strip off

00:33SPEAKERabout the size of your front teeth.

00:36SPEAKERAnd then you leave the pink bit intact

00:39SPEAKERand you cut triangles out of the green end.

00:44SPEAKERAnd then you jam it up between your gums and your lip.

00:47SPEAKERAnd when you smile, it looks like you have horrible

00:50SPEAKERgreen and white pointy monster teeth.

00:53SPEAKER- You had too much time or not enough

00:56SPEAKERto occupy you on the farm, didn't you?

00:59SPEAKER- Look, you have to make your own fun, Brad.

01:01SPEAKERWe used to, well, okay.

01:04SPEAKERSo we did this, this was a family outing

01:06SPEAKERat my parents' side of the family,

01:07SPEAKERmy dad's side of the family.

01:09SPEAKERAnd whenever we all got together as a family,

01:11SPEAKERthere was almost always a watermelon there.

01:13SPEAKERAnd someone would get the knife out

01:17SPEAKERand carve out watermelon teeth for the kids

01:19SPEAKERand also the adults at the end of the meal.

01:22SPEAKERUsually, I mean, in fairness,

01:23SPEAKERusually those involved like a bushel of crabs

01:27SPEAKERon a picnic table someplace and like some corn

01:31SPEAKERthat had been wrapped up in aluminum foil

01:33SPEAKERand chucked on the grill and a lot of beer,

01:35SPEAKERlike really a lot of beer.

01:38SPEAKER- So I was gonna ask if the adults

01:39SPEAKERwere fairly inebriated at this point.

01:41SPEAKERAlso, was this a, like a Virginia?

01:43SPEAKERSurely you did not have crabs in Tennessee.

01:47SPEAKER- Crabs in Tennessee were a rare treat.

01:49SPEAKERWe would often, if we went,

01:51SPEAKERone of my dad's friends lived in North Carolina,

01:52SPEAKERwould go get, he would get crabs

01:54SPEAKERwhen we came to visit them often,

01:56SPEAKERif it was the right time of year.

01:58SPEAKERBut usually crabs were a Virginia thing.

02:00SPEAKERAnd when I think back on it now

02:02SPEAKERand what the water quality in the Chesapeake Bay

02:04SPEAKERwas probably like when I was a kid,

02:06SPEAKERI like, it's amazing, my liver and like, I don't have,

02:09SPEAKERI'm not riddled with horrible diseases

02:11SPEAKERas a result of eating crabs from the Chesapeake Bay.

02:13SPEAKER- I always used to look, you're in luck.

02:15SPEAKERThe liver is a regenerative organ.

02:17SPEAKER- That's true.

02:17SPEAKERBut yeah, so we'd make watermelon teeth.

02:19SPEAKERWe had a family reunion where somebody came down,

02:23SPEAKERwell, the whole family came down to our house in Tennessee

02:26SPEAKERand they brought a bunch of crabs.

02:28SPEAKERWe did the normal thing.

02:29SPEAKERAnd then we all made watermelon teeth

02:34SPEAKERand we took a family portrait.

02:36SPEAKERLike the family reunion picture

02:38SPEAKERwas with everybody with watermelon teeth.

02:41SPEAKERAnd we did the whole thing with like the Olympus camera

02:44SPEAKERwith the three-second timer that clicked down

02:46SPEAKERand you put it on the picnic table or a tripod or whatever.

02:48SPEAKERAnd everybody got in the picture.

02:49SPEAKERWe took it to the photo place.

02:52SPEAKERAnd you know, kids these days don't remember this,

02:55SPEAKERbut it used to be when you took your photos,

02:57SPEAKERyou knew that the person was gonna look at them

02:59SPEAKER'cause they had to look at them to develop them.

03:00SPEAKERAnd they'd always have something like nice to say about them.

03:03SPEAKERThey're like, oh, it looks like

03:03SPEAKERyou had a really nice vacation.

03:04SPEAKERI'm so jealous.

03:05SPEAKERI can't believe you went to, you know, Carowinds or whatever.

03:09SPEAKERAnd they looked at it and they were like,

03:12SPEAKERman, that family picture is fantastic.

03:14SPEAKERYou guys look so good.

03:15SPEAKEREverybody looks so happy and like having such a big time.

03:18SPEAKERJust beautiful smiles all around.

03:20SPEAKERAnd we all had watermelon teeth in the picture

03:22SPEAKERand she didn't notice.

03:24SPEAKER- Kids these days don't understand

03:26SPEAKERyou couldn't just take illicit photos of whatever back then.

03:29SPEAKER- Well, you could, but you had to know somebody

03:32SPEAKERor be able to develop your own business

03:34SPEAKERif you were gonna take naughty pictures.

03:36SPEAKER- You had to be okay with at least one person

03:40SPEAKERseeing those things.

03:40SPEAKER- Also, every single one hour photo place

03:44SPEAKERhad a folder full of keepers

03:46SPEAKERthat they just made a do above.

03:48SPEAKER- What? - Oh yeah.

03:50SPEAKER- Oh man, it sounds like you have inside knowledge.

03:52SPEAKER- I'm just, it's just what I've been told, Brad.

03:55SPEAKERJust what I've been told.

03:57SPEAKER(upbeat music)

04:16SPEAKER(upbeat music continues)

04:25SPEAKER- Welcome to Brad and Will Made a Tech Pod.

04:27SPEAKERI'm Will.

04:28SPEAKER- I'm Brad, hello.

04:29SPEAKERHave you ever done the cut a hole in the watermelon

04:31SPEAKERand up in the bottle of vodka in it

04:33SPEAKERor maybe Everclear if you've really got a death wish?

04:36SPEAKER- Yeah, the Everclear is what we did

04:37SPEAKER'cause we were bad at math

04:39SPEAKERand also we had a smaller watermelon

04:41SPEAKERthat I think you probably wanted for a pint of that stuff.

04:44SPEAKERIt was a bad time, Brad.

04:45SPEAKER- Ooh, that sounds terrible.

04:47SPEAKERI don't think I've ever actually done that.

04:49SPEAKER- One of the all-time bangers

04:52SPEAKERwas on my grandmother's birthday

04:54SPEAKERwhen she turned, I think, 88.

04:55SPEAKERWe were at the lake on a boat

04:57SPEAKERand people on the lake are neighborly

05:00SPEAKERand one of our neighbors at the boathouse next to us,

05:03SPEAKERboathouse in Tennessee is like a tenement

05:05SPEAKERfloating on big styrofoam blocks,

05:09SPEAKERand one of our neighbors was like,

05:12SPEAKER"Oh, it's your birthday, Nora, come on over.

05:14SPEAKERWe got jello shooters."

05:16SPEAKERSo my 88-year-old British grandmother

05:18SPEAKERwas standing on the dock doing jello shooters

05:21SPEAKERat three o'clock in the afternoon.

05:22SPEAKER- I can't process anything you were saying

05:25SPEAKERbecause I did not grow up in a drinking family.

05:27SPEAKER- Oh, was it like-

05:28SPEAKER- Like I grew up in a relatively religious family,

05:32SPEAKERdepending on, but nobody drank at family functions

05:35SPEAKERfor the entirety of my childhood.

05:37SPEAKER- Well, okay, so I have come from a long line

05:40SPEAKERof mostly functional alcoholics.

05:42SPEAKERIt's mostly why I don't drink,

05:45SPEAKERlike I'll have a beer occasionally,

05:46SPEAKERbut I don't drink a lot anymore.

05:52SPEAKERMy grandmother's idea of a drink was to get

05:55SPEAKERa tablespoon of rum in a 12-ounce Coke

05:59SPEAKERwith a little bit of lime.

06:01SPEAKERThat was what she liked to drink.

06:03SPEAKER- Sensible.

06:04SPEAKER- She was from the not drinking side,

06:06SPEAKERmy mom's side of the family.

06:06SPEAKERThey were like, "I'll have a cocktail."

06:08SPEAKERAnd it was always something with a splash in it, right?

06:12SPEAKERThe other side of the family almost all have drinking

06:16SPEAKERproblems, so, you know, it's pros and cons.

06:20SPEAKERI'll take the not drinking, it turns out.

06:22SPEAKER- Yes, speaking of pros and cons,

06:25SPEAKERputting an automated system in charge

06:27SPEAKERof global nuclear annihilation.

06:30SPEAKER- Well, look, there's a human element, right,

06:33SPEAKERthat you got to cut out of the loop

06:34SPEAKERbecause they're unpredictable.

06:35SPEAKERComputers, perfectly predictable, Brad.

06:38SPEAKERNothing could go wrong.

06:40SPEAKER- Definitely, well, it's true that they only do

06:42SPEAKERwhat you tell them, you just got to be really sure

06:43SPEAKERwhat it is you're telling them to do.

06:45SPEAKER- That is true.

06:46SPEAKERBrad, of course, is alluding to the seminal 1983 classic

06:49SPEAKERstarring Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy, "War Games."

06:53SPEAKERMade for $16 million, Brad.

06:55SPEAKERWe could Kickstarter that today.

06:57SPEAKER- It's only been about not even 13 hours

06:59SPEAKERsince I finished this movie for the first time.

07:02SPEAKER- I can't believe you've never seen this before, also.

07:04SPEAKER- There's a lot of movies I have never seen.

07:06SPEAKER- That's true, you GameSpot guys were too busy

07:08SPEAKERplaying video games to watch movies.

07:10SPEAKERSee, magazine people, we had a lot of time to go to the movies,

07:12SPEAKERit turns out.

07:13SPEAKER- Yes, we were quite busy trying to get through games.

07:15SPEAKERAlso, prior to working in video games,

07:18SPEAKERI still spend most of my time trying to play games

07:21SPEAKERor be on computers to the exclusion of movies.

07:24SPEAKER- What you're saying is like,

07:26SPEAKERyou would have been sitting in your bedroom

07:28SPEAKERand you would have heard about a new upcoming title,

07:30SPEAKERlike a "Final Fantasy VII" or something like that.

07:33SPEAKERYou would have started calling phone numbers in Japan

07:38SPEAKERto try to hack into the system and get access to the game

07:42SPEAKERbefore anybody else did or was officially released.

07:45SPEAKER- Exactly, yes.

07:46SPEAKERI'm gonna say real quick before we get into this,

07:49SPEAKERwe've only done three movies, right?

07:50SPEAKERWe've "Hackers," "Sneakers," and this.

07:52SPEAKER- As far as I'm concerned,

07:53SPEAKERthey're the three greatest computer hacking movies

07:55SPEAKERof all time.

07:56SPEAKER- I'm going to say unequivocally the best of the three.

08:01SPEAKER- Oh, I think-

08:03SPEAKER- At least my favorite of the three.

08:04SPEAKER- So this one has the benefit of being first, right?

08:07SPEAKERThis is the first computer movie.

08:09SPEAKERI mean, people saw "Tron," but "Tron" is a fantasy.

08:11SPEAKERIt's not really about computers.

08:15SPEAKERFirst off, this is a movie-ass movie.

08:17SPEAKERThis is like a Cold War thriller kind of like,

08:21SPEAKERthere's intrigue, there's romance,

08:23SPEAKERthere's Matthew Broderick looking very young

08:26SPEAKERdespite the fact that he was 21.

08:32SPEAKERAlso, I think this movie's probably held up as well,

08:35SPEAKERbetter than any of the other movies we've watched

08:37SPEAKERon this podcast so far.

08:38SPEAKER- That's kind of what I mean.

08:39SPEAKERThis is like the most successful

08:41SPEAKERand well-constructed major motion picture film, you know?

08:45SPEAKERLike "Hackers," like, look, "Hackers" is "Hackers," okay?

08:48SPEAKER- "Hackers" is brilliant art, Brad,

08:50SPEAKERand I'll hear nothing else.

08:51SPEAKER- "Sneakers" is good, but a little goofy in spots,

08:54SPEAKERbut this movie just works.

08:56SPEAKER- And it's funny 'cause the themes are as relevant today

08:59SPEAKERas they were maybe more so than they were 40 years ago,

09:03SPEAKERI think.

09:03SPEAKERIf you think about the idea of replacing humans

09:07SPEAKERwith computers and the current dialogue

09:10SPEAKERand the fact that there's right now a SAG-AFTRA strike

09:13SPEAKERand a Writers Guild strike that is basically,

09:17SPEAKERlike, one of the core things that they're striking

09:19SPEAKERbecause they don't want the movie studios

09:22SPEAKERto be able to replace their roles

09:24SPEAKERwith AI-generated analogs,

09:28SPEAKERlike, we're having the same conversations now

09:30SPEAKERthat we were 40 years ago.

09:31SPEAKER- Yeah, I mean, to expand,

09:34SPEAKERit's the idea of replacing people with computers

09:37SPEAKERthat learn through iteration,

09:39SPEAKERwhich, like, the premise of this movie

09:41SPEAKERjust gets less outlandish

09:43SPEAKERthe farther away from it we get.

09:45SPEAKER- Yeah, it's remarkable.

09:50SPEAKERI think, so worth mentioning,

09:52SPEAKERscored three Oscar nominations

09:53SPEAKERfor cinematography, Best Screenplay in Sound.

09:56SPEAKERIt didn't win any of them.

09:57SPEAKERI think not winning the screenplay is a real crime

10:01SPEAKERin the cinematography.

10:02SPEAKERI don't remember one cinematography in '83.

10:05SPEAKER- Scored the coveted four stars from Roger Ebert.

10:07SPEAKER- Yeah.

10:08SPEAKERThe interesting thing he says that happened in this movie

10:11SPEAKERis it's a movie about avoiding nuclear annihilation

10:14SPEAKERin the early '80s.

10:15SPEAKERAt the end of the movie,

10:17SPEAKERby the way, from this point on, spoilers, I guess,

10:19SPEAKERwe're gonna just talk about the whole movie.

10:20SPEAKER- Yeah, it was probably not much point in listening to this

10:23SPEAKERif you haven't already seen "War Games."

10:25SPEAKER- It's a 40-year-old movie,

10:27SPEAKERso I don't wanna hear any complaining about spoilers

10:29SPEAKERin the comments, y'all.

10:31SPEAKERThe end of the movie, the computer famously says

10:35SPEAKERthe only way to win the game is to not play at all, right?

10:37SPEAKERTalking about global thermonuclear war.

10:40SPEAKER- That's like the one thing I wish I hadn't known

10:42SPEAKERabout going into this, but go on.

10:43SPEAKER- Well, audiences reportedly applauded.

10:46SPEAKERLike when I was looking up newspaper clippings

10:48SPEAKERand reviews of the movie,

10:49SPEAKERpeople were applauding and cheering at the end of the movie.

10:52SPEAKER- It's like an amazing and like, you know,

10:55SPEAKERit's cliche or trite these days,

10:57SPEAKERbut like it's a pretty powerful observation

11:00SPEAKERfor a computer to make.

11:01SPEAKERAbout global destruction.

11:02SPEAKER- Well, and it's a power, like it's hard to remember now

11:06SPEAKER'cause we were both probably too young

11:08SPEAKERto really be aware before there wasn't,

11:10SPEAKERbefore, I mean, being real,

11:12SPEAKERstill a constant threat of nuclear war

11:14SPEAKERbecause we made choices as species.

11:17SPEAKER- Yeah.

11:17SPEAKER- However, it was more impending, I think,

11:21SPEAKERfor the people who were teenagers and older

11:24SPEAKERin the early '80s than we really can appreciate.

11:28SPEAKERAnyway, the last time I watched this movie,

11:32SPEAKERI think was in either 2008 or 2013

11:34SPEAKERfor the 25th or 30th anniversary, I can't remember.

11:36SPEAKERI looked for old podcast notes

11:38SPEAKERand couldn't actually find them

11:40SPEAKERbecause I thought we talked about it

11:41SPEAKERand this is only a test, but I don't believe we did.

11:45SPEAKERIt's a remarkable, like from the very beginning,

11:49SPEAKERthat the cold open of like the missile silo,

11:55SPEAKERthe establishing shots of the missile silo

11:56SPEAKERwhere they just drive out to a house

11:58SPEAKERand there's a secret door and elevators

11:59SPEAKERand all sorts of stuff where they're going down

12:02SPEAKERinto the standoff crew is going down into the silo

12:07SPEAKERand gets locked into the bunker

12:08SPEAKERand then there's a false alarm for all,

12:12SPEAKERI guess it's a simulation at that point.

12:14SPEAKER- It's a test.

12:15SPEAKERYeah, I was shocked how well this opening scene works

12:18SPEAKERand also how maybe not quite consistent in tone

12:22SPEAKERit is with the rest of,

12:22SPEAKERlike the rest of the movie is a bit lighthearted.

12:24SPEAKERIt's a bit of a romp, especially in light

12:28SPEAKERof the subject matter, but this opening scene

12:30SPEAKERis like tense as hell.

12:31SPEAKERIt's like taut and like gripping.

12:34SPEAKERI was sort of on the edge of my seat watching this.

12:36SPEAKERIt's all executed so well.

12:38SPEAKERAlso this, I don't know how realistic this base is

12:42SPEAKERat the beginning, but everything about the trappings of it

12:45SPEAKERis amazing from like the secret entrance

12:47SPEAKERin the little house to the gigantic,

12:51SPEAKERthey're not pressurized doors,

12:52SPEAKERbut they go through this like almost airlock looking thing

12:54SPEAKERand-

12:55SPEAKER- Well, so like they hid the entrances

12:57SPEAKERto the missile silos for a long time.

12:59SPEAKERI don't know if they still were in the 80s.

13:00SPEAKER- I believe that actually happened.

13:02SPEAKERI think they just represent it really well

13:03SPEAKERwith this two-way mirror and stuff.

13:08SPEAKER- So one of the interesting things about this,

13:11SPEAKERand I don't know if this is one of the scenes

13:12SPEAKERthat was fresh out, but they changed directors

13:14SPEAKERafter like just a few days of work.

13:18SPEAKERThe first director was I think Martin Brest.

13:21SPEAKERI can't remember, it's something Brest.

13:24SPEAKERMartin Brest.

13:26SPEAKERAnd he shot it, they fired him because it was too dark.

13:30SPEAKERIt was too serious.

13:31SPEAKERLike he had shot, I know he'd shot the hacking scene,

13:33SPEAKERthe first one with Ally Sheedy and Matthew Broderick

13:36SPEAKERin his bedroom when they're changing grades.

13:38SPEAKERAnd the person who ended up coming in

13:42SPEAKERto do the rest of the movie.

13:47SPEAKER- John Batum.

13:48SPEAKER- John Batum, thank you.

13:50SPEAKERLooked at that scene and was like,

13:51SPEAKERwait, there's something not right.

13:53SPEAKER'Cause it was shot like it was a taught Cold War thriller.

13:55SPEAKERIt was like it was really super serious

13:57SPEAKERand they were like doing scary criminal stuff.

14:00SPEAKERAnd he came back and re-shot it

14:01SPEAKERas like they were kids having fun.

14:04SPEAKERAnd it makes the whole thing work

14:05SPEAKERbecause they're clearly just playing with the computer.

14:09SPEAKERIt's a new thing to both of them.

14:10SPEAKERWell, it's not a new thing to Matthew Broderick,

14:12SPEAKERbut it's a new thing to, or David Lightman, the character.

14:15SPEAKERBut it's a new thing to Ally Sheedy.

14:16SPEAKERAnd she's like, wait, you can do that?

14:18SPEAKERAnd he's just showing off.

14:19SPEAKERLike he's a boy trying to impress a girl

14:22SPEAKERwho's hanging out in his bedroom.

14:24SPEAKERAnd she's the first person probably

14:26SPEAKERwho's shown interest in what he likes to do

14:28SPEAKERoutside of his nerd friends who are at the university.

14:33SPEAKERAnd that really makes the whole thing work.

14:35SPEAKERThe fascinating thing that I learned

14:37SPEAKERreading about this for this outing

14:40SPEAKERis that the script originally started

14:43SPEAKERas nothing to do with computers at all.

14:46SPEAKERLike the original pitch was, it was about Stephen Hawking.

14:49SPEAKERThat blew my mind because even I,

14:52SPEAKERnot having seen "War Games" like for decades

14:54SPEAKERhave known this as the hacking movie, right?

14:57SPEAKERIt's like, it's the movie where Matthew Broderick

14:59SPEAKERhacks into a nuclear system.

15:01SPEAKERIt's about hacking, right?

15:02SPEAKERBut it sounds like it was the scientist aspect.

15:05SPEAKERIt was actually the Stephen Falcon character.

15:09SPEAKER- You mean Stephen Hawking?

15:10SPEAKER- Yes, apparently the actual genesis of the story

15:13SPEAKERwas about a scientist and a protege and that whole thing.

15:17SPEAKER- Well, yeah, the idea was somebody saw the story.

15:21SPEAKERSomebody learned the story of Stephen Hawking, right?

15:23SPEAKEROne of the great minds of our time.

15:24SPEAKERAnd the idea that he could solve the universal field theory

15:28SPEAKERbut be so locked in because of ALS

15:30SPEAKERthat he couldn't share that information with anyone

15:33SPEAKERwas terrifying to them.

15:35SPEAKERAnd they wanted to do a story about a young

15:39SPEAKERkind of rebellious outsider who was typical Hollywood stuff,

15:43SPEAKERwho was misunderstood and was not living up to his potential

15:47SPEAKERbecause his environment wasn't supporting him, right?

15:51SPEAKER- It's like extremely the back to the future set up as well.

15:54SPEAKERLike who knows how many other movies.

15:56SPEAKER- Yeah, exactly.

15:57SPEAKERAnd then they needed a way to get the kid from the suburbs

16:02SPEAKERto connect with the brilliant astrophysicist.

16:05SPEAKERAnd they were like, oh, they talked to a bunch of people.

16:07SPEAKERThey went to the Stanford Research Institute

16:10SPEAKERand they were like, what about computers?

16:12SPEAKERThey're like, all these kids, they're doing computer stuff.

16:14SPEAKERThey're connecting to systems.

16:17SPEAKERThey're doing all this kind of cutting edge computer stuff.

16:20SPEAKERMaybe that's the way to do it.

16:21SPEAKERAnd that was the genesis for the entire hacking,

16:26SPEAKERlike the thing that the movie is famous for now.

16:29SPEAKER- Yeah, they kind of fell backwards into both the hacking

16:32SPEAKERand the nuclear war aspects of this.

16:34SPEAKER- Yeah, and so just to be clear,

16:38SPEAKERhackers is foundational for people who are our age,

16:41SPEAKERI think maybe a little bit younger even.

16:43SPEAKERSneakers is fun, but kind of was telling people

16:47SPEAKERabout something they already knew.

16:49SPEAKERThis movie had to introduce the idea

16:51SPEAKERthat computers could talk to each other.

16:53SPEAKERIt had to introduce the idea that computers,

16:57SPEAKERhow computers work and it did it in a reasonable way.

17:01SPEAKERAnd without a whole lot of like unfortunate exposition,

17:04SPEAKERit really just jumps in.

17:09SPEAKERLiterally people call war dialing or war driving

17:12SPEAKERwhen you're looking for wifi access points.

17:14SPEAKERThat's a reference to war games.

17:16SPEAKER- That blew my mind.

17:17SPEAKERFirst of all, I may have heard the term war dialing

17:21SPEAKERat some point, but the war driving

17:22SPEAKERwas really the only one I knew,

17:24SPEAKERwhich is kind of the drive around

17:26SPEAKERand look for open wifi equivalent of the war dialing in this.

17:30SPEAKERBut yeah, finding out that essentially colloquially

17:35SPEAKERit was renamed to war dialing

17:37SPEAKERbecause of this movie is crazy.

17:39SPEAKERDEFCON, the hacker convention is named DEFCON

17:43SPEAKERbecause of this movie.

17:44SPEAKER- Yes, like this is some very influential stuff.

17:48SPEAKER- Kevin Mitnick said that he spent a year in solitary

17:51SPEAKERbecause a prosecutor told a judge

17:53SPEAKERthat if he got access to a telephone,

17:54SPEAKERhe could dial up NORAD and launch a nuke.

17:57SPEAKERMitnick laughed in the courtroom.

17:58SPEAKERThe judge believed in it and he spent a year in the hole.

18:01SPEAKER- Oops. - Right?

18:03SPEAKER- The classic very haunting strategy game DEFCON.

18:07SPEAKER- Yeah, 2006. - Ever played it?

18:09SPEAKER- Yeah, it's fantastic. - 2006,

18:10SPEAKERthe introversion classic,

18:12SPEAKERlike it's basically a video game version of the NORAD scene.

18:15SPEAKER- He said he wanted to make the NORAD.

18:17SPEAKERThey said they wanted to make the NORAD game.

18:19SPEAKER- Yeah, like it's everywhere.

18:20SPEAKERI mean, like I said, I knew the only winning move

18:24SPEAKERis not to play a line very well, of course, coming into this.

18:28SPEAKERYeah, like the influential nature

18:31SPEAKERof this thing is kind of crazy.

18:33SPEAKER- Just to be clear, John Draper,

18:35SPEAKERwho was known as Captain Crunch,

18:36SPEAKERthe guy who figured out that you could use

18:38SPEAKERthe 2,600 hertz whistle that came in Captain Crunch boxes

18:42SPEAKERto bypass paying for phone calls,

18:46SPEAKERis attributed in a 2008 Wired retrospective.

18:49SPEAKERAnd he literally says, I called that scanning

18:52SPEAKERbefore the movie.

18:54SPEAKERIt's called war dialing now because David Lightman

18:56SPEAKERused it in the movie to make contact

18:57SPEAKERwith the NORAD computer.

18:59SPEAKER- Yeah, that's amazing.

19:00SPEAKERSome good freaking in this movie as well.

19:02SPEAKER- Yeah, the soda tab. - And freaking adjacent.

19:05SPEAKER- The soda tab. - Stuff.

19:06SPEAKERWas that the, that was the phone booth part.

19:08SPEAKER- That was the phone booth one.

19:09SPEAKERI don't know if that actually worked.

19:10SPEAKERI'm curious if you can short it out that way.

19:12SPEAKER- Yeah, I wonder if that's one of those,

19:13SPEAKERlike we had to fictionalize it just enough

19:15SPEAKERso people wouldn't just go out and do it.

19:17SPEAKERBut then there's also, it's not a phone,

19:19SPEAKERbut he kind of does the same thing acoustically

19:20SPEAKERwith that door keypad.

19:23SPEAKER- Oh yeah, he records the touch tones with the keypad

19:25SPEAKERto figure out how to open the door.

19:26SPEAKERAnd then also hot wires it so that it'll no longer work

19:29SPEAKERwhen he goes out, it's pretty good.

19:32SPEAKERThere's some crazy cameos from people

19:34SPEAKERwho were relatively new actors in this movie.

19:37SPEAKERJohn Spencer was Jerry in the missile silo.

19:39SPEAKERHe played the chief of staff on the West Wing

19:41SPEAKERand did a bunch of other stuff over the years.

19:48SPEAKERThe captain or the admiral in charge

19:51SPEAKERof Tom Cruise's aircraft carrier in Top Gun

19:55SPEAKERis one of the FBI agents.

19:58SPEAKERThere were a couple other people that I recognize

20:00SPEAKERthat I didn't actually, I didn't get them to look up.

20:03SPEAKER- That's the guy you're talking about

20:04SPEAKERis also the principal from Back to the Future.

20:07SPEAKER- His name is James Tolkien,

20:09SPEAKERwas also the principal from all three Back to the Futures

20:11SPEAKERor he's the Marshall in the third one I think.

20:13SPEAKER- There's another actor in this who it is killing me.

20:15SPEAKERMaybe somebody can help me out here.

20:18SPEAKERI don't know his name.

20:19SPEAKERHe is one of the, he's a military officer

20:21SPEAKERthat I think only has like one speaking scene or shot even.

20:25SPEAKERWho I'm positive is the teacher or a principal

20:27SPEAKERfrom some sitcom or something.

20:29SPEAKERHis voice is incredibly familiar.

20:32SPEAKERHe basically has like one line

20:34SPEAKERwhere he's on the phone talking to somebody.

20:36SPEAKERI cannot find it in the movie.

20:36SPEAKER- He's an Air Force officer headset.

20:38SPEAKERThat's the other one I was thinking,

20:39SPEAKERthat's the other thing I was thinking,

20:40SPEAKERthe other person I was thinking about.

20:42SPEAKERApparently John Lennon was originally,

20:43SPEAKERthey originally want to get John Lennon to be Dr. Faulkner,

20:47SPEAKERbut he was shot before that happened unfortunately.

20:51SPEAKER- That was kind of crazy to find out.

20:54SPEAKER- Jason Bernard, who was in like a ton of stuff,

20:59SPEAKERliar, liar, he's been a character actor in a bazillion

21:02SPEAKERthings and was also in "Wing Commander 4",

21:06SPEAKER"The Price of Freedom" as Captain William Eisen

21:09SPEAKERand "Heart of the Tiger", the video ones.

21:13SPEAKERHe shows up all over, all over this.

21:15SPEAKERIt's a pretty remarkable.

21:18SPEAKER- Yeah, it's a great cast.

21:19SPEAKER- Early 80s cast.

21:20SPEAKER- I glossed over "Ally Sheedy" in the credits

21:22SPEAKERat the beginning and then spent the entire movie

21:24SPEAKERnot realizing that Jennifer is Ally Sheedy

21:26SPEAKERbecause I 98% know her from "The Breakfast Club".

21:31SPEAKER- Well, I mean, yeah.

21:31SPEAKER- She plays such a different character.

21:34SPEAKER- Very much so.

21:35SPEAKER- Super did not even make the connection

21:37SPEAKERuntil the end credits.

21:39SPEAKER- It's when they do talk about how old the scientist was

21:42SPEAKERwhen he died and they say, "Oh, he's 41.

21:45SPEAKEROh, that is really old."

21:46SPEAKERI was like, "Oh man, I'm just going to collapse

21:48SPEAKERinto dust over here."

21:49SPEAKER- I mean, yes, but also they're dumb teenagers.

21:53SPEAKERWhen you're 16 years old, 40 is incredibly old.

21:56SPEAKER- 41 sounds like you might as well be dead.

21:59SPEAKERI think Matthew Broderick is a fantastic choice

22:02SPEAKERin this movie because he plays the energetic,

22:07SPEAKERtalented loner type kid quite well,

22:10SPEAKERbut you get little glimpses of his sort of impish

22:13SPEAKERFerris Bueller appeal coming out here and there.

22:16SPEAKER- He's also really kind of introspective.

22:20SPEAKERThere's some heavy scenes in this movie.

22:21SPEAKERWhen they go to Faulkner's and Faulkner basically is like,

22:25SPEAKER"Yeah, you know, the dinosaurs got wiped out

22:27SPEAKERand it all worked out after that.

22:29SPEAKERMaybe our turn is up."

22:30SPEAKERAnd Matthew Broderick does the impassioned speech

22:34SPEAKERto convince him that he should help them save the world.

22:37SPEAKERAnd then they're like, "Well, fuck this guy

22:39SPEAKERand go look for a boat."

22:40SPEAKERAnd end up making out on the beach because he's like,

22:42SPEAKER"I don't know how to swim.

22:44SPEAKERI thought there'd be more time to learn how to swim."

22:46SPEAKERIt's surprisingly, yeah, like the idea-

22:49SPEAKER- Kind of work, fatalistic kind of.

22:51SPEAKER- Yeah, and the idea that you'd rather not know,

22:55SPEAKERlike he's like, "I wish I didn't know.

22:57SPEAKERI wish there was like everybody else out there

22:58SPEAKERthat didn't know the world was gonna end in seven hours."

23:01SPEAKERAnd it's funny 'cause that actually,

23:04SPEAKERlike I don't think they realized that this was a thing

23:06SPEAKERthat had happened at the time the script was written.

23:08SPEAKERBut in 1979, there was a simulation that got fed into the,

23:13SPEAKERbefore the 1980, they used to run the simulations

23:16SPEAKERon the actual hardware you use to launch the nukes,

23:19SPEAKERwhich seems like probably a bad idea in retrospect.

23:23SPEAKERAnd somebody's fed a simulation into the network

23:26SPEAKERand almost started World War III in 1979.

23:29SPEAKERThe national security advisor was on the phone

23:31SPEAKERand authorizing second strike capability

23:33SPEAKERin the whole thing.

23:34SPEAKERThey hadn't gotten to the point

23:35SPEAKERthat they woke up the president yet.

23:37SPEAKERBut like he was reported as saying,

23:40SPEAKER"Hey, I didn't even bother waking up my wife

23:43SPEAKER'cause I figured she'd rather not know

23:44SPEAKERthat she had nine minutes to live."

23:46SPEAKER- That's heavy.

23:47SPEAKER- Yeah, like it's intense.

23:49SPEAKERIt's an intense movie. - That's pretty heavy.

23:51SPEAKERAnd also, I'm glad to hear you describe that

23:54SPEAKERbecause like, it's not a, I don't hold this

23:56SPEAKERagainst the movie, but one of the aspects

23:58SPEAKERthat really does sort of make you,

24:01SPEAKERit forces you to suspend your disbelief

24:03SPEAKERa little more than usual

24:04SPEAKERis the part where everybody in NORAD

24:07SPEAKERjust keeps going along with this data and never questioning.

24:11SPEAKEREven after they've known

24:12SPEAKERthat they've gotten bad simulation data once,

24:14SPEAKERthey still spend half the movie

24:16SPEAKERcontinuing to consume that bad data

24:19SPEAKERand believe that it's real.

24:20SPEAKERLike at some point you're just sort of like, come on,

24:22SPEAKERlike would they really not figure out

24:24SPEAKERthat this is all like vaporware?

24:26SPEAKERBut then hearing that that happened in real life,

24:29SPEAKERkind of it's like, you know what?

24:31SPEAKEROkay, yes, reality actually is that ridiculous.

24:33SPEAKER- If you want to not sleep for a few nights,

24:35SPEAKERgo read the number of times that we almost,

24:37SPEAKERwe had near misses with both the Russia, on both sides.

24:40SPEAKERRussia, like there was one,

24:42SPEAKERthere was one that was like a 1980 or 81

24:44SPEAKERwhere some kid in a missile silo had the launch order

24:48SPEAKERand he had a bad feeling about it.

24:49SPEAKERSo he didn't do it, right?

24:50SPEAKERLike the opening where 20% of the people in the silos

24:54SPEAKERwouldn't turn their keys

24:55SPEAKER'cause they didn't think it was,

24:57SPEAKERthey wanted to be sure is a real thing

25:01SPEAKERthat was a real problem,

25:03SPEAKERwhich is one of the reasons they justified having massive,

25:06SPEAKERlike over building of nuclear missiles.

25:08SPEAKERSo anyway.

25:09SPEAKER- Yeah, I mean, the same thing happened in the Soviet Union,

25:11SPEAKERlike right after this movie came out,

25:13SPEAKERlike the famous dead hand incident

25:16SPEAKERwhere again, the launch officer basically

25:19SPEAKERlike kind of refused to go through procedure

25:22SPEAKERout of skepticism about how valid the order was.

25:25SPEAKERAnd it turned out in fact, not to be valid.

25:27SPEAKER- Well, and then again, at the end of the movie,

25:30SPEAKERwhen the general, General Barringer, I think is his name,

25:34SPEAKERis the character's name,

25:36SPEAKERlike they realized it was a simulation.

25:38SPEAKERThey pull everything, they pull the bombers back,

25:40SPEAKERthey pull the submarines back.

25:41SPEAKERBut by that point, Whopper had already been connected

25:43SPEAKERto the silos and the computer is intent

25:47SPEAKERon firing the missiles.

25:48SPEAKERAnd he's like, well, shit, I gotta call the president

25:50SPEAKERand tell him he might have to go through

25:51SPEAKERwith this thing anyway.

25:52SPEAKERAnd it's very reminiscent of Dr. Strangelove,

25:54SPEAKERwhich is like the template for this side of the movie,

25:59SPEAKERthe nuclear side of the movie kind of.

26:01SPEAKER- It's another movie I've not seen.

26:03SPEAKER- Oh, good God.

26:04SPEAKER- I know.

26:05SPEAKER- Dr. Strangelove is real good.

26:07SPEAKERI guess my point is people get in,

26:10SPEAKERwhen people, when you're in a situation

26:11SPEAKERwhere people are told what to do,

26:13SPEAKERa lot of times people just do it, right?

26:15SPEAKERThat's the Stanford prison experiment.

26:18SPEAKERI always get that mixed up with the other one

26:20SPEAKERthat was bad that they did at Stanford.

26:21SPEAKERBut anyway, like people will follow orders,

26:24SPEAKEReven if they're bad.

26:24SPEAKER- That is the one, that's the infamous one

26:26SPEAKERwhere people become like awful authoritarians

26:29SPEAKERas soon as they are handed any amount of power.

26:32SPEAKERIf there's one thing to make you pause

26:34SPEAKERand not just go through with the thing

26:35SPEAKERthat you were being told to do,

26:36SPEAKERit's the knowledge that tens of millions or more people

26:40SPEAKERare going to die when you turn the key.

26:42SPEAKER- Well, yeah, John Spencer in the missile silo

26:43SPEAKERgets the good line.

26:44SPEAKERIt's like, I want somebody on the goddamn phone

26:46SPEAKERbefore I kill 21 people.

26:47SPEAKERWho's the silo commander, right?

26:49SPEAKER- Yeah.

26:50SPEAKER- Like that is, like that has come up so many,

26:54SPEAKERit comes up in Crimson Tide.

26:55SPEAKERIt was the exact same line.

26:56SPEAKERLike the, what's his name from French Connection

27:02SPEAKERand Lex Luthor, the first Lex Luthor.

27:05SPEAKER- Gene Hackman.

27:06SPEAKERGene Hackman tells Denzel Washington turn your keys, sir,

27:08SPEAKERwhile he's pointing a gun at it.

27:09SPEAKERBut it's the exact same scene.

27:10SPEAKERIt's very good.

27:11SPEAKER- Right, yes.

27:12SPEAKERYeah, we watched Crimson Tide last year for the watch cast

27:15SPEAKERand watching that was a good primer for this

27:18SPEAKERbecause I saw the whole order comes in.

27:21SPEAKERYou gotta like snap the card in half,

27:22SPEAKERlike turn keys at the same time,

27:24SPEAKERauthenticate codes, the whole thing.

27:26SPEAKER- So a couple of interesting things.

27:29SPEAKERI didn't, the writers actually went to NORAD

27:32SPEAKERand took the tour and met the general in charge of NORAD

27:35SPEAKERwho found out what they were making the movie about.

27:37SPEAKERThey gave him the gist,

27:38SPEAKERwhich is like a computer takes control of the missiles

27:40SPEAKERand goes crazy.

27:41SPEAKERAnd he was like, ah, yeah, I sleep much better

27:44SPEAKERand I know and I'm in charge of this

27:45SPEAKERinstead of some damn computers.

27:47SPEAKER- Sure.

27:48SPEAKER- And they got pretty good access.

27:50SPEAKERNow it was, nothing was actually shot at NORAD.

27:51SPEAKERThe set they made, they shot the exteriors

27:54SPEAKERin Newhalem, Washington in an old gravel pit,

27:56SPEAKERlike the tunnel, they made the tunnel.

27:59SPEAKER- Oh, that tunnel's great.

28:00SPEAKER- So it's interesting 'cause I couldn't tell

28:01SPEAKERif the tunnel looks like the NORAD tunnel

28:03SPEAKERor if a lot of NORAD tunnel pictures on the internet

28:06SPEAKERactually just used this shot from war games.

28:10SPEAKERReal NORADs in Cheyenne, Mounting, Colorado,

28:13SPEAKERthe first place to get nuked in the world

28:16SPEAKERshould the Russians decide to attack us.

28:18SPEAKERI think it's-

28:19SPEAKER- Oh, it isn't the whole idea that it's like hardened enough

28:22SPEAKERor underground enough to survive?

28:24SPEAKER- It was hardened enough or underground enough to survive

28:26SPEAKERdropped bombs, but not 30 ICBM shots

28:29SPEAKERhitting it back to back.

28:29SPEAKER- Sure, sure.

28:32SPEAKERLike the lesson of the ICBM era

28:35SPEAKERis that nothing is hard enough to survive ICBMs

28:38SPEAKER'cause there's so many warheads

28:39SPEAKERthat you just, you drop three or four at a time

28:42SPEAKERand it works anyway.

28:43SPEAKERGreat.

28:44SPEAKERBut the set's incredible.

28:45SPEAKERThe set that they built for this is incredible.

28:47SPEAKERThey have the big, like all the way from like

28:49SPEAKERthe big springs hanging from the columns

28:50SPEAKERso the floor is isolated from vibrations,

28:52SPEAKERthe huge screens, all the like '50s style power plant

28:57SPEAKERlooking control panels were all built for this movie.

29:02SPEAKERThey won a technical Oscar, right?

29:04SPEAKERFor the screens, I think.

29:06SPEAKER- Yeah, there's a little bit on Wikipedia

29:08SPEAKERabout how they did the screens in the center.

29:10SPEAKERThose were all live while the actors were shooting.

29:13SPEAKERSo like there's no special effects on those screens.

29:15SPEAKER- Oh wow, I didn't know that.

29:17SPEAKER- They were using like newer super bright screens

29:20SPEAKERwith they're projecting from behind

29:22SPEAKERonto these super bright screens that were bright enough

29:24SPEAKERfor the camera to just capture what's on the screen.

29:26SPEAKER- Oh, that's awesome.

29:27SPEAKER- So the actors actually had something to react to.

29:30SPEAKERColin Cantwell of Star Wars fame.

29:32SPEAKER- What?

29:33SPEAKER- The guy who did a lot of the original models

29:35SPEAKERfor the design models for Star Wars,

29:37SPEAKERnot the final shooting models, but he did all the graphics.

29:41SPEAKERHe did all of the nuclear computer display stuff in this.

29:44SPEAKER- Oh, that's the way the HP 9845C came in, right?

29:49SPEAKER- Are you familiar with that computer?

29:50SPEAKER'Cause I looked that up as I was reading about this

29:52SPEAKERand it looks amazing.

29:55SPEAKERThe, well, yeah, it's like a desktop computer.

29:58SPEAKERIt looks like, are those tape decks on there?

30:01SPEAKERIt almost feels like, I can't tell.

30:04SPEAKERYeah, the computer that he did the war game stuff

30:07SPEAKERon the HP 9845C, it is a desktop computer,

30:10SPEAKERat least this picture on Wikipedia.

30:12SPEAKERIt is a personal computer, but.

30:14SPEAKER- Oh yeah, it was a $39,000 computer for what it's worth.

30:19SPEAKER- Jeez.

30:20SPEAKER- Holy cow.

30:21SPEAKER- It does not look that expensive, but sure.

30:23SPEAKER- It's beige.

30:25SPEAKER- It took one minute to render each frame of the.

30:28SPEAKER- That's pretty good.

30:29SPEAKER- Of the graphics, they had 50,000 feet of negatives

30:33SPEAKERof those, of the computer graphics.

30:36SPEAKER- Wow.

30:37SPEAKER- And then, yeah, like I said, they 16 millimeter projected

30:39SPEAKERfrom behind, like rear projected onto those big screens.

30:42SPEAKERAnd then it works, like they look quite good.

30:45SPEAKERThey look like it's actually happening in there.

30:48SPEAKER- So it looked so good that the generals

30:50SPEAKERin charge of NORAD saw the movie and they were like,

30:52SPEAKERhey, we gotta upgrade our stuff.

30:53SPEAKERIf it can look like this in the movies,

30:54SPEAKERwe can make it look like this in real life.

30:58SPEAKERAnd yeah, and then they upgraded the entire war room

31:04SPEAKERin real life, apparently as a result of the movie.

31:06SPEAKER- Everything about the look of this movie is amazing.

31:08SPEAKERLike the NORAD stuff looks suitably like retro futuristic

31:12SPEAKERand they handled the graphics really well.

31:14SPEAKERThere's also, this is just a me thing.

31:17SPEAKERThere's also the aspect of like, I entered public school

31:20SPEAKERright around the time this movie came out.

31:22SPEAKERSo all of the corduroys and like that scene in that diner

31:26SPEAKERor the arcade, like the brown tables and trays

31:30SPEAKERand everything's brown, everything just looks,

31:33SPEAKERthis is like such a nostalgia thing for me.

31:35SPEAKERAll the fashion.

31:36SPEAKER- High-waisted khaki pants.

31:38SPEAKER- The stripes, his green striped collared shirt.

31:42SPEAKERIt's all so 80s and all the stuff in his room.

31:45SPEAKERI mean, that inside, we've talked about this before

31:48SPEAKERthat inside 8080 is practically a like fetish object

31:52SPEAKERof a really computing at this point

31:54SPEAKERto the point that you can buy, like you can build

31:56SPEAKERrepro kits of that thing now,

31:58SPEAKERif you want to have one of those sitting on your shelf.

32:00SPEAKER- Yeah, that was an early 8086 processor PC.

32:03SPEAKERI mean, it wasn't that early at that point, I guess,

32:05SPEAKERbut they ran CPM.

32:09SPEAKERThere's a cio.com article about the technology of war games.

32:13SPEAKERIt's really good.

32:14SPEAKERWe'll put it in the show notes,

32:16SPEAKERbut like they used an MSI IKB1 keyboard

32:20SPEAKERthat was programmable 'cause Matthew Broderick couldn't type.

32:23SPEAKER- Wow.

32:24SPEAKER- So they would program in the sequences

32:25SPEAKERthat he was typing into the computer as keyboard shortcuts.

32:29SPEAKERAnd then the keyboard would jam them into the computer.

32:32SPEAKER- Interesting.

32:33SPEAKER- They didn't actually use that computer

32:35SPEAKERto generate the shots on the screen.

32:38SPEAKERThat computer that they used to generate the on-screen shots

32:40SPEAKERwas a CompuPro System 8/16,

32:44SPEAKERwhich was another 8086 PC that ran CPM as well.

32:48SPEAKERAnd I assume that's because they probably didn't want

32:50SPEAKERto have fans on on the set so they could get audio.

32:52SPEAKERSo they probably piped that in from elsewhere.

32:55SPEAKER- Yeah, what else does he have going on in his room here?

32:58SPEAKEREight inch floppy disk?

32:59SPEAKER- Yeah, it's like 15 grand worth of hardware, easy.

33:01SPEAKERProbably more when I realized what that HP cost.

33:04SPEAKER- Yes.

33:05SPEAKER- The eight inch floppy disk,

33:06SPEAKERI never actually saw an eight inch floppy disk in person

33:08SPEAKERother than like a display, I don't think.

33:10SPEAKER- Ironically, weren't those eight inches also used

33:13SPEAKERin the nuclear command and control?

33:15SPEAKER- Until recently, yeah.

33:16SPEAKER- Until very recently, like just within the last few years.

33:19SPEAKER- Yeah, well, the bits are big enough

33:20SPEAKERthat cosmic radiation won't flip them apparently.

33:23SPEAKER- Yes.

33:24SPEAKER- Can we talk about the modem?

33:26SPEAKER- Yes, I'm looking at it right now.

33:27SPEAKERIt's also, is that the modem on top of his monitor?

33:30SPEAKERIt is, right?

33:31SPEAKER- Yeah, the modem is on top of his monitor.

33:33SPEAKERI think Ali Sheehy puts the vocoder box

33:35SPEAKERon top of the modem at some point.

33:36SPEAKERYou get a pretty good look at it,

33:37SPEAKERbut it has all the switches to configure your,

33:39SPEAKERconfigure your, you know, there's no AT commands

33:43SPEAKERto set quad rates and stuff like that at that point.

33:45SPEAKERYou control it with dip switches inside

33:46SPEAKERor the big switches on the front.

33:49SPEAKER- Yeah, the switches on the front are labeled

33:51SPEAKERlike AL, ST, RDL, DL, HS.

33:54SPEAKER- Yeah, it was a Servitech 212A,

33:57SPEAKERis the actual modem that was on the set.

33:59SPEAKERThey rebadged it at an MSAI, I think,

34:04SPEAKERbecause they wanted people to understand

34:06SPEAKERthat they all worked together, I don't know.

34:09SPEAKER- Kind of.

34:10SPEAKER- It was a 1200 baud modem.

34:11SPEAKER- Could also be that they had like, you know,

34:13SPEAKERrights to show the MSAI name and not the other company.

34:17SPEAKERSo we were like, "Hey, let's just get the most out of this."

34:20SPEAKER- Yeah, that's possible.

34:21SPEAKERI don't, like it's, it's a weird thing.

34:23SPEAKERIt also, they also used an acoustic coupler,

34:24SPEAKERwhich I assume is because they wanted people to understand

34:29SPEAKERthat the computer was using phone lines.

34:30SPEAKERSo they put the phone thing on the acoustic coupler,

34:32SPEAKEReven though it wasn't actually necessary

34:34SPEAKERfor that modem to plug in directly to the phone line.

34:36SPEAKER- Yeah, so I had never seen an acoustic coupler before

34:39SPEAKERand did not know that's what this was until I asked you.

34:42SPEAKERAnd like, yeah, is there a scenario like what he's doing

34:45SPEAKERwhere it would have been required?

34:47SPEAKER- Yeah, so there was a period of time

34:49SPEAKERwhere the only way to connect a modem to a computer

34:51SPEAKERwas by cupping, by connecting a speaker and a microphone

34:54SPEAKERto the speaker and microphone.

34:56SPEAKER- That seems-

34:57SPEAKER- The microphone and speaker of the headset.

34:58SPEAKER- That seems very subject to interference.

35:00SPEAKERLike somebody's hollering too close to the coupler.

35:04SPEAKER- Well, yeah.

35:05SPEAKER- Or somebody's, you know,

35:06SPEAKERsomebody's mowing the yard right outside or something.

35:08SPEAKERIt seems like it would be rough

35:09SPEAKERto maintain a good connection.

35:11SPEAKER- Or like, you know, I guess you have to remember

35:14SPEAKERat that point, Bell was still selling everybody phones

35:16SPEAKERand you weren't allowed to hook up non-licensed phones

35:18SPEAKERto the network. - Oh, really?

35:19SPEAKER- But yeah.

35:20SPEAKER- Oh, wow.

35:21SPEAKER- Or I guess they were leasing people phones.

35:22SPEAKERI don't think you could even buy them.

35:25SPEAKER- I didn't know that was ever a thing.

35:26SPEAKER- Oh yeah, that's one of the reasons they got split up

35:30SPEAKERis because they wouldn't let people connect.

35:32SPEAKERLike the government forced them

35:33SPEAKERto let other people connect licensed,

35:35SPEAKERbut not hardware that they sold.

35:38SPEAKERBut like you had to have the right shape phone

35:40SPEAKERto hook up to the coupler.

35:41SPEAKERYou could also get ones that would clip on

35:42SPEAKERthat would kind of like bungee around the top

35:45SPEAKERas two separate pieces,

35:46SPEAKERI guess if you had a princess phone or something.

35:48SPEAKERBut I don't think I ever actually,

35:52SPEAKERI've seen acoustic couplers, but never had to use one.

35:55SPEAKERI was well after that.

35:56SPEAKERI think the first modem I had

35:57SPEAKERwas a 2400 baud modem probably.

36:01SPEAKERBut yeah, there's some other stuff in that shot.

36:04SPEAKERIt's an expensive bedroom.

36:05SPEAKERHe's a dot matrix printer

36:06SPEAKERand just prints an incredible amount of paper.

36:12SPEAKER- The vocoder is really interesting

36:14SPEAKER'cause that seems like it was completely faked in the movie.

36:19SPEAKERI don't know.

36:20SPEAKERVocoders were another thing

36:22SPEAKERthat you read about in magazines

36:23SPEAKERand nobody ever actually had

36:24SPEAKER'cause it was kind of useless.

36:26SPEAKERBut in terms of giving the computer a voice

36:31SPEAKERand making Whopper,

36:32SPEAKERthe computer that's gonna destroy the world,

36:34SPEAKERa character in the movie,

36:35SPEAKERthe vocoder is absolutely vital.

36:37SPEAKER- Oh yeah.

36:38SPEAKER- It lets them have conversations with the computer

36:40SPEAKERand not just, as you know, Brad,

36:43SPEAKERthere's nothing more boring than a shot

36:44SPEAKERof somebody sitting on a computer typing.

36:48SPEAKER- Yeah, they do the same thing with the actors.

36:50SPEAKERYeah, it's all just in service to making the movie work.

36:53SPEAKERThey have Lightman and Falcon

36:54SPEAKERboth when they are typing to Whopper

36:57SPEAKERor sitting there reading out everything they're typing

37:00SPEAKERas they type it, right?

37:02SPEAKERAs if there is actual dialogue

37:04SPEAKERbetween a human and a computer out loud.

37:07SPEAKER- They had a bunch of actual kids

37:11SPEAKERwho were, what we would call now hacking.

37:14SPEAKERIt wasn't really a name for it then.

37:16SPEAKERThere's a guy named David Scott Lewis who was the,

37:20SPEAKERwell, I think he claims he was the model for David Lightman.

37:22SPEAKERHe was just one of the people that they talked to.

37:29SPEAKERThey based the character of Lightman

37:31SPEAKERon a bunch of different people.

37:33SPEAKERIt kind of seemed like, which makes sense.

37:37SPEAKERIt's a, but they talked to Captain Crunch.

37:40SPEAKERThey talked to Mitnick later, I guess.

37:42SPEAKERI don't know.

37:44SPEAKERThey got a lot of the hardware from a guy named Todd Fisher

37:50SPEAKERwho was, I assume, active at the time.

37:52SPEAKERI couldn't find out a whole lot about him.

37:54SPEAKERHe's a little quiet these days.

37:56SPEAKER- The bedroom hardware, you mean?

37:58SPEAKER- The bedroom hardware. - The bedroom hardware.

38:00SPEAKEROh, interesting. - The MSI

38:01SPEAKERand the floppy disk and all that stuff

38:03SPEAKERcame from him, I believe.

38:04SPEAKER- Oh, that's interesting.

38:05SPEAKERYou always just, I always just kind of assume like,

38:06SPEAKERoh, they just bought all that stuff.

38:08SPEAKERLike they just, it just came out of the budget, but no.

38:10SPEAKER- No, like you, for that kind of stuff,

38:12SPEAKERespecially like you're probably paying people

38:14SPEAKERto be consultants on the film.

38:15SPEAKER- Sure. - So they're providing

38:16SPEAKERthe hardware as part of that consultancy.

38:18SPEAKERAnd probably also like writing the code,

38:20SPEAKERlike I assume that one of the computer guys

38:23SPEAKERfigured out that they could program the keyboard

38:26SPEAKERto get over Broderick's inability to type.

38:30SPEAKERAnd like the computer consultants would have told them,

38:33SPEAKERhey, like nobody's gonna have just a single login.

38:35SPEAKERYou have to have a password and stuff like that too,

38:38SPEAKERbut you're whatever.

38:39SPEAKERBut then they bypass that just for instance,

38:43SPEAKERjust so the movie flows.

38:44SPEAKER- Yeah, yeah, I would say that's probably the other thing

38:48SPEAKERup there with the thing I mentioned earlier about NORAD,

38:50SPEAKERlike kind of uncritically believing

38:51SPEAKERall those simulation data they're getting.

38:53SPEAKER- Yeah.

38:54SPEAKER- The kind of ease with which he just logs

38:56SPEAKERinto everything in the world is a little ridiculous,

39:00SPEAKERbut it's like, it totally makes the movie work, right?

39:02SPEAKER- But also like Mitnick is quoted talking about this film

39:06SPEAKERand saying, that's the way it was in the early days.

39:08SPEAKER- That's fair.

39:08SPEAKER- There was a period of time early on

39:09SPEAKERwhen people would just plug a modem into their computer

39:11SPEAKERand not realize that it would pick up the phone

39:13SPEAKERwhen people called that number, right?

39:15SPEAKER- Right, yeah.

39:16SPEAKER- And so depending on what OS you were running,

39:18SPEAKERyou would just have full access to the machine

39:20SPEAKERwith the moment you logged in,

39:22SPEAKER'cause it just shows up like a terminal.

39:25SPEAKERThere's a couple of good scenes, the arcade machine is,

39:27SPEAKERI love that Galaga is his favorite game.

39:29SPEAKER- Yeah.

39:30SPEAKER- Galaga is clearly the best of that era of arcade game.

39:33SPEAKER- Yes, oh, absolutely.

39:35SPEAKER- And he's actually good at Galaga in the game.

39:38SPEAKERLike he hits the challenging stage, he has two ships.

39:40SPEAKERHe's like, you know, they paid attention.

39:42SPEAKERThe high score is a pretty good high score.

39:44SPEAKER- Isn't there a Galaga sound effect somewhere else

39:47SPEAKERin this movie, like maybe in the nuclear system somewhere?

39:49SPEAKERI thought I'd swear I heard an arcade sound.

39:51SPEAKER- I thought there was a-

39:53SPEAKER- Like da da da da da.

39:54SPEAKER- The dying ship sound or the extra life sound,

39:58SPEAKERone or the other.

39:59SPEAKER- Yeah, I can't remember where that is.

40:00SPEAKERMaybe somebody can help us out.

40:02SPEAKER- The fact that at one point the general is like,

40:08SPEAKERI wanna talk to the people that are gonna get hit

40:10SPEAKERby the bombs first, get them on the horn for me.

40:12SPEAKERAnd like he gets the first two people are generals

40:15SPEAKERand the third guy is like a squeaky voice,

40:17SPEAKERis like the Simpsons teenage kid working

40:20SPEAKERat the fast food place.

40:21SPEAKERHe's like, yeah, yeah, sir, no, the CEO's not here yet.

40:26SPEAKERAnd he smiles and like calms him down.

40:29SPEAKER- Airman Darty's maybe my favorite character,

40:31SPEAKERfavorite big character in the movie, for sure.

40:33SPEAKER- Yeah, I was surprised that Lightman's

40:36SPEAKERkind of hacker friends didn't play a bigger role

40:39SPEAKERin the story.

40:40SPEAKERThey just have that one scene is too-

40:42SPEAKER- Oh, it's Belvin is one of the guys' names.

40:46SPEAKERJim and Belvin, I think.

40:47SPEAKER- Speaking of classic archetypes,

40:49SPEAKERyou've got the slovenly nerd and the extremely uptight,

40:53SPEAKERlike rude, socially awkward nerd.

40:56SPEAKER- High strung, probably on the spectrum.

40:58SPEAKERHey, you told me to tell you when you were being annoying.

41:00SPEAKERI'm telling you you're being annoying now.

41:03SPEAKERYeah, it's a remarkable.

41:06SPEAKERThat guy played a bunch of nerds.

41:08SPEAKERThe guy who played Belvin,

41:09SPEAKERwhich I assume is that they started with Melvin

41:11SPEAKERand they needed to make the name nerdier.

41:14SPEAKERBut he played a bunch of nerds in the eighties

41:17SPEAKERand then did a bunch of voice work.

41:18SPEAKERHe played, most notably, he played Dexter's nemesis

41:24SPEAKERon Dexter's laboratory for the entire run of that show.

41:28SPEAKERAnd then it started showing up in indie movies lately.

41:38SPEAKERThe role of Falcon, the surprise reveal that Falcon's alive,

41:43SPEAKERmidway through the movie,

41:45SPEAKERthe way these kids are moving around the world,

41:48SPEAKERthe fact that high school kids are able to go

41:51SPEAKERget from Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado back to Portland

41:56SPEAKERjust by booking a plane ticket

41:58SPEAKERis kind of amazing.

41:59SPEAKERIs I don't, I think you'd have a hard time flying

42:02SPEAKERas a 15 or 16 year old now.

42:06SPEAKER- Not if you're David Lightman

42:07SPEAKERand you can just log into Panhand's reservation system.

42:10SPEAKER- It's true.

42:11SPEAKER- Get yourself a reservation.

42:14SPEAKERYeah, the reveal that he is alive

42:16SPEAKERis like an amazing shot in the arm for this movie

42:18SPEAKER'cause I did not see that coming at all.

42:21SPEAKER- No.

42:22SPEAKER- And like that's what makes this thing work

42:24SPEAKERis that it's just got a lot of like

42:26SPEAKERwell executed classic movie stuff in it, right?

42:28SPEAKERLike even before that, when he is,

42:32SPEAKERthere's kind of the detective montage almost of him

42:34SPEAKERtracking down everything he can find about Falcon.

42:37SPEAKER- Yeah, he's like going to microfiche libraries

42:39SPEAKERusing microfiche and-

42:41SPEAKER- Like the breadcrumb trail of,

42:43SPEAKERbut I think that's what his hacker friends tell him, right?

42:46SPEAKERIs they put him on to like,

42:47SPEAKER"Oh, well there's a game in here called Falcon's Maze.

42:49SPEAKERMaybe your next step should be find out

42:51SPEAKEReverything you can about this Falcon character."

42:52SPEAKERAnd then it's like a good little detective thing.

42:57SPEAKERAnd then yes, that culminates later.

42:58SPEAKERLike right at the moment when the movie

43:00SPEAKERcould use a little more drama

43:01SPEAKERor needs something to move it forward,

43:03SPEAKERhe sleuths his way into finding that,

43:06SPEAKER"Oh my God, this like famous computer programmer,

43:09SPEAKERscientist guy is still alive."

43:11SPEAKER- The tragic figure at the heart of the story.

43:14SPEAKERThe other thing, you hit this there,

43:15SPEAKERjust like with "Sneakers,"

43:17SPEAKERthe real life hacking stuff is depicted really well.

43:20SPEAKERThe phone freaking stuff,

43:21SPEAKERthe using research about a person

43:23SPEAKERto figure out what their password is,

43:25SPEAKERthe social engineering to get,

43:27SPEAKERwhen he's in the principal's office and he's like,

43:30SPEAKER"Oh, I know where they store the passwords

43:32SPEAKERfor the school grades computer."

43:34SPEAKERPulls out the little writing desk

43:35SPEAKERand there's the classic list of,

43:38SPEAKER"Oh, here's all of the old passwords scratched out."

43:43SPEAKER- The grade changing thing also,

43:44SPEAKERI'm sure like was amazing at the time.

43:48SPEAKER- There was real fear, yeah.

43:49SPEAKER- Yeah, like the second I saw he was failing a class in this

43:52SPEAKERI immediately knew like,

43:53SPEAKERof course he's gonna hack into the school and change his grade

43:55SPEAKERlike, 'cause it's such a huge trope now,

43:57SPEAKERbut I'm sure at the time people were like, "Oh my God."

44:00SPEAKER- I didn't know anybody who did that, I don't think.

44:02SPEAKER- Like, did that,

44:03SPEAKERis there a documented case of that happening?

44:05SPEAKER- I wonder if it's like D&D and Satanism, right?

44:08SPEAKER- Yeah, it's like,

44:09SPEAKERit is practically full on urban legend at this point

44:12SPEAKERthat people used to do that.

44:13SPEAKERAnd I wonder if that ever actually

44:15SPEAKERhappened in a recorded way.

44:17SPEAKER- Well, there's a case in 2022

44:22SPEAKERof a principal changing students' grades for years.

44:25SPEAKER- Interesting.

44:27SPEAKER- Yeah, that's not exactly what we're looking for here,

44:30SPEAKERbut also the- - Somewhat different

44:31SPEAKERmotivation, but yeah.

44:32SPEAKER- Using the touch tones, recording the touch tones

44:35SPEAKERand like the scene where he's looking around the nurses,

44:38SPEAKERthe exam room to find something he can use

44:42SPEAKERto get to free himself is,

44:45SPEAKERand also how he socially engineers his way onto the bus,

44:48SPEAKERonto the tour bus and the whole thing.

44:50SPEAKERLike that tour bus experience was straight

44:53SPEAKERfrom when the two writers, Lasker and Walter Parks,

45:02SPEAKERLawrence Lasker and Walter Parks went on the NORAD tour.

45:08SPEAKERYeah, it's an absolutely fascinating look

45:14SPEAKERat what hacking was like before we called hackers hackers

45:17SPEAKERand before they were, this was before Mitnick.

45:19SPEAKERThis was before Mitnick was vilified

45:21SPEAKERas destroying the fabric of society using computers

45:24SPEAKERand such a threat he has to be isolated from all technology.

45:28SPEAKER- I know I kind of called out a couple aspects of this

45:30SPEAKERthat maybe strained credulity a little bit,

45:32SPEAKERbut like in general, there is nothing technical

45:36SPEAKERin this movie that really seems truly implausible.

45:38SPEAKERLike everything- - Except for Whopper.

45:40SPEAKER- Well, even now, but even now, like I said,

45:42SPEAKERlike now the idea of a computer that learns

45:45SPEAKERthat has fed a bunch of data

45:47SPEAKERand learns from it through iteration

45:48SPEAKERand that is put in charge of things

45:49SPEAKERit shouldn't be in charge of seems pretty plausible.

45:53SPEAKER- It just took 40 years for Whopper to catch up.

45:56SPEAKERAt the time, Whopper was just a big box designed

45:58SPEAKERto look like a furnace with a guy sitting inside

46:00SPEAKERusually working in Apple II.

46:02SPEAKER- Yeah, yes, that's amazing that Whopper is driven,

46:04SPEAKERall the lights in Whopper are driven by an Apple II

46:07SPEAKERand there's somebody in there doing that live

46:09SPEAKERwhile they're shooting it.

46:10SPEAKER- The guy inside was Mike Fink

46:11SPEAKERwho was a special effects supervisor

46:13SPEAKERand he was driving the panel with Apple II.

46:19SPEAKER- Yeah, but just in general, his use of computers,

46:22SPEAKERhis hacking into remote systems,

46:25SPEAKERall the foibles in the nuclear system, you name it,

46:28SPEAKERlike anything technical in this movie

46:29SPEAKERis at least plausible enough to watch and enjoy the movie.

46:32SPEAKERIt's all handled with at least a decent amount of savvy.

46:36SPEAKER- Well, and also, so I guess really,

46:38SPEAKERif we wanna get down to it, the biggest lasting impact

46:44SPEAKERof this film is that it kind of birthed

46:46SPEAKERthe modern computer security.

46:48SPEAKERLike there were people who were concerned

46:51SPEAKERabout computer security for a good decade,

46:54SPEAKERtwo decades before this happened

46:55SPEAKERfrom the dawn of ARP and that, right?

46:57SPEAKERBut most notably, a guy named Willis Ware

47:02SPEAKERwho wrote a paper called Security and Privacy

47:04SPEAKERin Computer Systems in the '60s, in the late '60s.

47:09SPEAKERBut this drew attention to it to the point

47:11SPEAKERthat after a screening at Camp David,

47:14SPEAKERReagan was like, "Hey, is this possible?"

47:16SPEAKERin the meeting about nuclear proliferation the next week

47:20SPEAKERand tasked a general, John Vessey,

47:24SPEAKERwho was the chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff

47:25SPEAKERto find out if it could really happen.

47:27SPEAKERHe went back, looked at the research people had been doing

47:30SPEAKERand was like, "Yeah, this probably was much worse

47:32SPEAKERthan you think," primarily based on the fact

47:34SPEAKERthat the NSA had been doing it to Russia and China

47:37SPEAKERfor a decade at that point.

47:39SPEAKERSo this spawned a national security directive

47:46SPEAKERcalled NSDD 145, which was the National Policy

47:49SPEAKERon Telecommunications and Automated Information

47:51SPEAKERSecurity Systems, which basically said,

47:54SPEAKER"Hey, if you're buying stuff for the government,

47:57SPEAKERyou have to have somebody secure this."

47:58SPEAKERHe tried to get the NSA to do that work

48:01SPEAKERrather than the CIA or FBI or whatever,

48:04SPEAKER'cause there was no agency for that at the time.

48:07SPEAKERIt ended up getting changed later on

48:08SPEAKERbecause the NSA is not supposed to work

48:10SPEAKERin the United States.

48:12SPEAKER- Oh, ha ha.

48:14SPEAKER- Yeah, NSA and CIA aren't supposed to do work in the US.

48:17SPEAKERSome stuff changed after 9/11, Brad.

48:20SPEAKER- Well, do you mean like geographically?

48:22SPEAKERLike I'm sure the not on American citizens thing

48:24SPEAKERis part of the mission statement,

48:26SPEAKERbut is that like literally can't do work

48:28SPEAKERin the borders of the country?

48:29SPEAKER- No, no, no, they're not supposed to do,

48:33SPEAKERthey're not supposed to do counter terror.

48:35SPEAKERLike the FBI is supposed to handle counter terrorist

48:38SPEAKERand counter intel and stuff like that

48:40SPEAKERinside the United States.

48:40SPEAKERThe CIA and the NSA are supposed to do signals

48:43SPEAKERand work outside and signals intelligence outside.

48:47SPEAKERThe NSA was not allowed to spy on American citizens

48:50SPEAKERuntil they got the metadata loophole in the 2000s.

48:53SPEAKER- Yeah, I knew that.

48:54SPEAKERI meant more like they're obviously,

48:55SPEAKERthere are like spies, foreign operatives in the country.

48:58SPEAKERSo that is an FBI thing.

48:59SPEAKER- That's an FBI thing.

49:01SPEAKERNow it's all under Homeland Security.

49:03SPEAKERSo like the distinctions are a little wobbly

49:06SPEAKERor is my understanding.

49:07SPEAKERI don't know if that's correct or not, but yeah.

49:10SPEAKERSo, so yeah, they, but it did that,

49:15SPEAKERlike that Reagan watching this movie

49:19SPEAKERbecause Lawrence Lasker grew up,

49:22SPEAKERhis parents were Hollywood people

49:23SPEAKERand Reagan came to cocktail parties at their house.

49:26SPEAKERSo he was able to get a screening of the film

49:28SPEAKERat Camp David resulted in the US government

49:31SPEAKERtaking cybersecurity seriously

49:34SPEAKERbefore there were really laptops on the market.

49:36SPEAKER- That's ridiculous.

49:38SPEAKERLike just the life imitating art aspect

49:41SPEAKERof that is completely absurd.

49:44SPEAKERThe picture of Reagan in this threw me for a loop

49:46SPEAKERbecause so many movies fictionalize the president

49:49SPEAKERand cast an actor.

49:50SPEAKER- Oh, but it was, he was just on the wall

49:51SPEAKERin the back of the office, FBI office or whatever, right?

49:54SPEAKER- Yes, so for the president canonically in this movie

49:57SPEAKERto just be Reagan really like kind of hit me over the head,

50:01SPEAKERbut also like Reagan is so associated

50:03SPEAKERwith this era of nuclear fear

50:06SPEAKERthat that feels very appropriate.

50:08SPEAKER- Yep, yep.

50:11SPEAKERSo yeah, I think that's it.

50:12SPEAKERThat's that's- - Yeah.

50:13SPEAKER- That's the-

50:13SPEAKER- Well, we can talk through the final sequence,

50:16SPEAKERI think is probably where to end this.

50:17SPEAKER- Oh yeah, that's a good call.

50:18SPEAKER- Just, you know, it may be a little long,

50:21SPEAKERbut it is very tense.

50:22SPEAKER- Well, it has some real ups and downs.

50:24SPEAKERLike the, hey, we figured out it's a simulation,

50:27SPEAKERwe're all safe.

50:28SPEAKEROh wait, what are those numbers that is pretty remarkable?

50:33SPEAKER- Yeah, but like the kind of,

50:35SPEAKERI mean, you know everything's fine,

50:36SPEAKERbut still the tension of these missiles

50:39SPEAKERare impacting in 20 seconds.

50:41SPEAKERWe have a bunch of these bases on the line,

50:42SPEAKERlike what's gonna happen?

50:43SPEAKEROr is it all of these people gonna die?

50:45SPEAKERLike you still feel the fear and the tension in the room,

50:50SPEAKEReven knowing that none of this is actually gonna result

50:52SPEAKERin mass death, right?

50:54SPEAKER- Yeah, it's intense.

50:56SPEAKERBarry Corbin's performance as the general here

50:59SPEAKERis really interesting 'cause he's,

51:01SPEAKERlike Barry Corbin's folksy and genial.

51:04SPEAKER- Oh my God, like the absolute archetype

51:07SPEAKERof the like cigar chomping Texas good old boy

51:11SPEAKERmilitary official or cop or whatever.

51:14SPEAKER- Yeah, well, and like the counterpoint between,

51:17SPEAKERhey, we might've just killed everybody on the planet

51:19SPEAKERand I'm talking to that private in Alaska

51:23SPEAKERabout whether he's been nuked yet or not,

51:27SPEAKERis a real, like it's a real hard line to ride, I think.

51:32SPEAKERLike if Barry Corbin doesn't play that exactly right,

51:34SPEAKERit doesn't work in any way at all.

51:37SPEAKERAnd I love like how he kind of,

51:42SPEAKERlike the hard swings that his character has

51:45SPEAKERfrom celebrating that we've made it

51:47SPEAKERto, hey, you should pick up the phone, the general,

51:50SPEAKERand then, well, shit, it looks like we're gonna have

51:51SPEAKERto go through with this anyway,

51:52SPEAKEReven though it's a mistake, is incredible.

51:57SPEAKER- Yeah, I was shocked how likable he turns out,

52:00SPEAKERor that character turns out to be by the end,

52:02SPEAKERwhich I think is a testament both to his performance

52:04SPEAKERand also to the script because the cliche would be,

52:07SPEAKERand you expect this early on,

52:09SPEAKERthe cliche would be that the general, the military guy,

52:12SPEAKERis the asshole warmonger who doesn't care if everybody dies

52:16SPEAKERand is pushing for some very risky

52:18SPEAKERor immoral action or policy, right?

52:21SPEAKERAnd the Daphne Coleman character,

52:23SPEAKERthe scientist is the guy who's like knows the truth

52:26SPEAKERand has it right and is the moral character

52:29SPEAKERand is pushing for the correct course of action,

52:32SPEAKERyou know what I mean?

52:32SPEAKERAnd like by the end,

52:33SPEAKERit's kind of revealed to be the opposite, right?

52:35SPEAKERThat like the military dude who thought humans

52:37SPEAKERshould be in charge of this stuff was right all along.

52:40SPEAKERAnd the scientist guy is kind of the asshole

52:43SPEAKERfor pushing for automating the system

52:45SPEAKERthat should never be automated.

52:47SPEAKER- It's like, there's no antagonist in this movie.

52:51SPEAKERThe antagonist is the state of the world.

52:53SPEAKER- Yes, yes, yes, the antagonist is the looming threat

52:57SPEAKERof mutually assured destruction.

52:58SPEAKER- And they keep setting up,

53:00SPEAKERthey do a really incredible job with the script

53:01SPEAKERwhere they set up antagonists

53:03SPEAKERor what you presume is gonna be the antagonist.

53:05SPEAKERYou know, it's the scientist who,

53:07SPEAKERit's the general who is in charge of the nukes.

53:11SPEAKERIt's the computer guy who wants to automate everything.

53:14SPEAKERIt's the scientist who's checked out

53:17SPEAKERand thinks we need another mass extinction

53:20SPEAKERto right planet earth.

53:22SPEAKERAnd it's Whopper, right?

53:24SPEAKERIt's the computer itself.

53:25SPEAKERLike there's a version of this movie

53:27SPEAKERwhere the computer is trying to kill,

53:29SPEAKERis homicidal versus apathetic

53:32SPEAKERand just trying to do its programming

53:36SPEAKERthat is a shit movie.

53:37SPEAKERIt's a really terrible movie.

53:39SPEAKERThere's a version of this

53:40SPEAKERwhere Barry Corbin's character is a warmonger.

53:42SPEAKERThere's a version of it where the computer guy

53:45SPEAKERdoes a bad hack, cuts a corner

53:48SPEAKERand causes the destruction of the planet.

53:52SPEAKERIt's really quite a beautiful script.

53:54SPEAKER- Yeah, I guess there really isn't

53:56SPEAKERa truly villainous character in this movie, right?

53:59SPEAKER- No, I mean, like Barry Corbin,

54:02SPEAKERwhen he's presented with pretty good evidence,

54:04SPEAKERreasonable evidence that it's all a false alarm,

54:07SPEAKERhe backs down immediately and is like,

54:09SPEAKERwell, okay, we can still afford,

54:10SPEAKERwe can still annihilate the hell out of them

54:13SPEAKERif we wait and see if the missiles hit first.

54:16SPEAKER- Yes.

54:17SPEAKER- We don't have to launch

54:17SPEAKERbefore the missiles are supposed to start hitting.

54:19SPEAKER- Yeah, like the Gene Hackman character in Crimson Tide,

54:21SPEAKERagain, is the villainous version of the general in this

54:24SPEAKERbecause he wants to launch at all costs,

54:26SPEAKEReven with like very good evidence

54:29SPEAKERor at least reason for skepticism

54:31SPEAKERthat they are not in fact supposed to launch.

54:33SPEAKERAnd like even the general in this,

54:36SPEAKERthe guy who would be the warmonger here,

54:38SPEAKERlike very, very much wants to avoid launching missiles.

54:42SPEAKER- Like the Gene Hackman character in Crimson Tide

54:43SPEAKERis really tough because like I look at that,

54:46SPEAKERit's been a long time since I watched that movie,

54:47SPEAKERbut I remember that being a,

54:50SPEAKERhere's a person who's been shaped by this awful job

54:53SPEAKERhe's been faced with for the entirety of his career.

54:56SPEAKERHe spent his entire career saying,

54:58SPEAKERyes, I can do this awful thing

54:59SPEAKERand kill millions of people if it comes down to it.

55:03SPEAKERAnd when he's presented with that situation,

55:05SPEAKERhe's so locked in by his preconditioning

55:08SPEAKERthat he can't get out of it.

55:10SPEAKER- I think that's a pretty good read on that character.

55:12SPEAKERAnd on top of that, he is a authoritarian

55:14SPEAKERand resents having his orders challenged.

55:17SPEAKERAnd I think-

55:18SPEAKER- Well, there's a racial component to it too,

55:19SPEAKERif I remember right.

55:20SPEAKER- Yes, there definitely is.

55:22SPEAKERBut like, I think part of it is he wants to go through

55:24SPEAKERwith the launch out of spite because-

55:26SPEAKER- He doesn't want to be wrong.

55:27SPEAKER- Yes, he doesn't want to be wrong.

55:28SPEAKERAnd he's angry about anyone in his crew

55:31SPEAKERundermining his orders.

55:33SPEAKER- Cognitive dissonance, real nightmare.

55:35SPEAKER- Nobody liked that character in this movie.

55:37SPEAKEREverybody is redeeming in some fashion.

55:40SPEAKER- Yeah, even Kitrick, who's like the shitty programmer

55:45SPEAKERwho comes up with the whole idea

55:46SPEAKERto hook the computers up to the shirts

55:48SPEAKERand is like clearly just worried

55:50SPEAKERabout the impact of this failure on his career.

55:53SPEAKERLike there's a shot when Corbin's like,

55:56SPEAKER"I gotta call the president and tell him what's going on."

55:58SPEAKERAnd he looks at him like, "What are you gonna tell him?"

55:59SPEAKERHe's like, "I'm gonna tell him what's happening."

56:02SPEAKERIt's like, maybe he's the antagonist, I don't know.

56:06SPEAKERIt's like, I think it's a pretty remarkable film.

56:12SPEAKERI also, the other performance I wanted to call out

56:15SPEAKERis Ally Sheedy does, as she said in an interview

56:18SPEAKERabout this 20 years later is I was really good

56:21SPEAKERat asking questions in this movie

56:22SPEAKER'cause I didn't have any idea what any of it meant

56:24SPEAKER'cause nobody knew anything about computers at the time.

56:27SPEAKER- Sure.

56:28SPEAKER- So she does the heavy lifting of exposition

56:33SPEAKERto explain by asking questions of Matthew Broderick

56:36SPEAKERto ask questions about computers

56:39SPEAKERand connecting to networks and modems

56:40SPEAKERand like how you do these things

56:43SPEAKERand all of the stuff that like at one point,

56:46SPEAKERI think during the grades hacking sequence, she says,

56:48SPEAKER"Is this real?"

56:50SPEAKERAnd he's like, "Yeah, of course it's real.

56:51SPEAKER"It's in the computer."

56:53SPEAKERAnd like that was an entirely new concept

56:57SPEAKERfor people at this time.

56:58SPEAKER- It's making me realize this movie

57:00SPEAKERprobably was a tremendous number of people's first exposure

57:03SPEAKERto computers of any kind, right?

57:04SPEAKERI don't think we, did we mention earlier

57:06SPEAKERthe how financially successful this was?

57:08SPEAKERIt was the fifth highest-grossing movie of the year.

57:10SPEAKER- Yeah, it made $80 million US,

57:12SPEAKERwhich was in the US market off of a $16 million budget,

57:16SPEAKERwhich is a lot then.

57:17SPEAKER- Like it was seen by a lot of people at the time

57:19SPEAKERand I bet the vast majority of those people

57:21SPEAKERhad never touched or even been in the room with a computer.

57:24SPEAKER- No, no.

57:25SPEAKER- I mean, at the time this movie introduced a lot of people

57:29SPEAKERto the idea that computers could do amazing things.

57:32SPEAKERBut I bet people, my assumption is people were going this

57:34SPEAKER'cause it was a Cold War, nuclear Holocaust thriller

57:38SPEAKERwhere the good guys, where the nuclear war lost.

57:40SPEAKERMaybe the nuclear war is the antagonist

57:42SPEAKERwhen I think about it.

57:43SPEAKERAnyway.

57:44SPEAKER- It absolutely is.

57:45SPEAKERAnyway, this final sequence, even knowing what was coming,

57:49SPEAKERI didn't know specifically that the tic-tac-toe thing

57:51SPEAKERwas gonna happen necessarily,

57:53SPEAKERbut I knew at the end the computer was gonna reject

57:56SPEAKERthe idea of playing the game in the first place.

57:58SPEAKERStill how they get there, I think is like visually

58:01SPEAKERincredibly striking, like getting the tic-tac-toe

58:05SPEAKERup on the screen and seeing that iterate faster and faster

58:09SPEAKERand then transitioning to doing that

58:10SPEAKERwith the first strike scenarios,

58:14SPEAKERlike watching it go through all those different

58:16SPEAKERnuclear plans, seeing the winner, none, winner, none,

58:20SPEAKERwinner, none, over and over and ever like that's,

58:24SPEAKERit's like kind of poignant, honestly,

58:25SPEAKERlike the way that it's executed,

58:28SPEAKERyou do get the ridiculous Hollywood thing

58:30SPEAKERwhere a bunch of the computer panels blow up for a reason.

58:33SPEAKER- Well, you know, you're using all the available power,

58:36SPEAKERBrad.

58:37SPEAKER- Of course, you know, if you look,

58:38SPEAKERI've seen enough Star Trek.

58:39SPEAKERIf you have computer panels on your set,

58:41SPEAKERyou have to blow some of them up.

58:42SPEAKER- Yeah, it's Chekhov's computer panel is in full effect.

58:46SPEAKERThe thing about that sequence is the, my favorite part

58:51SPEAKERabout that is the scrolling list of names

58:53SPEAKERof the different gambits.

58:54SPEAKERI didn't actually take the time to go up and look

58:56SPEAKERand see if like the Venezuelan gambit was a real thing

58:59SPEAKERor if it was something that the writers made up

59:02SPEAKER'cause some of them were pretty funny.

59:03SPEAKERThere was like.

59:04SPEAKER- Far East strategy, I'm trying to scroll through here.

59:07SPEAKERI believe I saw in India, Pakistan.

59:09SPEAKER- Yeah, that makes sense.

59:10SPEAKER- Scenario in there, Hong Kong variants.

59:13SPEAKEROh, get out of the way guy.

59:14SPEAKERSomebody's standing in front of the screen.

59:17SPEAKERThe Sudan, okay.

59:19SPEAKERThe Sudan surprise has got to be made up.

59:21SPEAKER- These have got to be fake, right?

59:22SPEAKER- The Argentina escalation, the Iceland maximum.

59:26SPEAKER- These all sound like Hitman episodes.

59:27SPEAKER- They absolutely sound like Hitman levels

59:30SPEAKERor escalations or whatever.

59:32SPEAKER- Yeah.

59:33SPEAKER- Yeah, the Turkish heavy.

59:34SPEAKER- I do like a Turkish heavy, Turkish delight.

59:36SPEAKERNo, thank you, Turkish heavy.

59:37SPEAKERYes, please.

59:39SPEAKER- Anyway, yeah.

59:39SPEAKERLike, you know, I had kind of backed into this

59:41SPEAKERfrom having played Def Con 15 years ago or whatever,

59:44SPEAKERbut like just those big ass screens

59:46SPEAKERof watching vector versions of nuclear strikes

59:49SPEAKERand the big giant circles as they impact and stuff,

59:51SPEAKERlike watching that play out faster and faster and faster

59:54SPEAKERis like super tense.

59:55SPEAKERAnd of course the conclusion, the wrap up is like amazing.

59:58SPEAKER- Oh, it's so good.

59:59SPEAKERThat's, Def Con still works.

1:00:01SPEAKEROh, it does, 2006.

1:00:02SPEAKER- I started to download it right before this.

1:00:04SPEAKERI'm going to have to find out.

1:00:05SPEAKERI believe there's.

1:00:06SPEAKER- I just downloaded it.

1:00:07SPEAKER- Steam user reviews from like days ago.

1:00:09SPEAKERSo I think probably it still does.

1:00:11SPEAKER- Very positive in the last 30 days.

1:00:13SPEAKERYeah, I'd say we're probably okay.

1:00:15SPEAKER- Oh, last thing.

1:00:16SPEAKERI guess this is the last thing I'll say.

1:00:17SPEAKERLike you, like you said, Def Con,

1:00:18SPEAKERthe hacker convention is named from this movie.

1:00:21SPEAKERI never knew what Def Con meant until this movie.

1:00:24SPEAKERIt means, it means defense condition.

1:00:26SPEAKERI knew what it stood for.

1:00:28SPEAKERI knew what, like the,

1:00:29SPEAKERI knew what the purpose of the rating was.

1:00:31SPEAKERI just didn't know.

1:00:32SPEAKERI never stopped to think like

1:00:34SPEAKERwhere the actual term came from, defense condition.

1:00:36SPEAKER- Wow.

1:00:37SPEAKER- So yeah.

1:00:38SPEAKER- I read a lot of Tom Clancy books in high school.

1:00:40SPEAKERSo I was pretty aware of Def Con.

1:00:43SPEAKERI think it's as good a place as any to wrap it up.

1:00:45SPEAKERWar games.

1:00:45SPEAKER- This movie rules.

1:00:46SPEAKERI am shocked, honestly, that like it, you know,

1:00:50SPEAKERfor as much hype and influence

1:00:52SPEAKERas this movie has had over time.

1:00:54SPEAKERLike I was shocked that it kind of surpassed my expectations

1:00:57SPEAKERjust in terms of being a good movie,

1:00:59SPEAKERas well as executing all the technical stuff quite well.

1:01:03SPEAKER- Yeah, having watched it every 15 years now, 20 years,

1:01:06SPEAKERit's amazing to me how much more relevant it was this time

1:01:11SPEAKERthan the last time I watched it probably is the thing

1:01:13SPEAKERthat struck me.

1:01:14SPEAKER- There was definitely that lull post like '91

1:01:17SPEAKERfor a good while where people were like,

1:01:20SPEAKERwell, nuclear Armageddon is probably

1:01:22SPEAKERnot gonna happen now, right?

1:01:24SPEAKERNow that one of the two superpowers is gone,

1:01:27SPEAKERprobably be fine, right?

1:01:28SPEAKERAnd then here we are.

1:01:29SPEAKER- Well, but not just that, but the AI replacing,

1:01:32SPEAKERtaking humans out of control loops and stuff like that

1:01:34SPEAKERand replacing computers taking our gerbs

1:01:37SPEAKERand all that is we're in a weird place.

1:01:41SPEAKER- Yeah, we sure are.

1:01:42SPEAKER- War Games, 1983, still relevant, it turns out.

1:01:45SPEAKER- Quite a movie, I'm impressed.

1:01:47SPEAKER- Brad, we're here and we're able to do things

1:01:49SPEAKERlike watch War Games and talk about it for an hour

1:01:51SPEAKERbecause of a few thousand delightful human beings

1:01:55SPEAKERwho support our show via Patreon.

1:01:58SPEAKERSo thank you, patrons.

1:01:59SPEAKER- Thank you, human beings.

1:02:00SPEAKER- Yes, we appreciate you.

1:02:01SPEAKERWe will not take you out of the loop,

1:02:03SPEAKERbut we will ask folks who like the show to support us

1:02:07SPEAKERby going to patreon.com/techpod

1:02:08SPEAKERwhere four or five bucks a month,

1:02:10SPEAKERyou too can get access to the TechPod Patreon,

1:02:15SPEAKERthe fabulous TechPod Discord, the Patreon exclusive patron.

1:02:20SPEAKERYou too can get access to the TechPod Discord,

1:02:23SPEAKERthe fabulous patron episodes which happen monthly.

1:02:26SPEAKERAnd if you want, you can get us to read your name

1:02:28SPEAKERevery month on the show, every week on the show even.

1:02:33SPEAKERSo thank you to all of our patrons,

1:02:35SPEAKERbut thank you especially to our executive producer

1:02:37SPEAKERto your patrons, including Nick Johnston,

1:02:39SPEAKERPaddle Creek Games Makers of Fractured Veil,

1:02:41SPEAKERAndrew Slosky, Crimes, Bunny, Just Wedge 3.0,

1:02:46SPEAKERJoel Krauska, Twinkie and the Argonauts,

1:02:49SPEAKERDavid Allen and James Kamik.

1:02:51SPEAKERThank you all so much.

1:02:53SPEAKERAnd I guess that'll do it for us this week.

1:02:55SPEAKER- Yeah, I'm excited to see what people have to say

1:02:57SPEAKERabout this movie on the Discord now that I have seen it.

1:02:59SPEAKER- Yeah, I am.

1:03:00SPEAKERI think we're also going to, due to popular request,

1:03:03SPEAKERwe are going to turn, a few weeks ago,

1:03:06SPEAKERwe turned the games channel into a forum on the Discord.

1:03:10SPEAKERSo you can have dedicated sub-channels and sub-conversations

1:03:15SPEAKERand there's, it's weird.

1:03:16SPEAKERI don't know how I feel about it still,

1:03:18SPEAKERbut people seem to like it.

1:03:19SPEAKERSo we're going to do that to the movies channel as well.

1:03:21SPEAKERSo we can have individual areas for people to talk about,

1:03:24SPEAKEROppenheimer and Barbie, and I guess also WarGames this week.

1:03:28SPEAKER- Yeah, yeah, get in there so I can talk to people

1:03:31SPEAKERabout maybe finally actually buying one of those

1:03:34SPEAKERMSI 8080 replica kits that I keep thinking about buying,

1:03:39SPEAKER'cause it seems like the kind of thing

1:03:40SPEAKERthat maybe won't get made forever

1:03:41SPEAKERand maybe I should get one 'cause it looks amazing.

1:03:44SPEAKERNow that I've seen this movie,

1:03:45SPEAKERI have an actual reason to do so.

1:03:47SPEAKER- Is there a Whopper kit?

1:03:49SPEAKER- Oh, I don't know.

1:03:50SPEAKERThat's a significantly taller order, I think.

1:03:54SPEAKER- I don't want the full size one,

1:03:55SPEAKERbut I want, man, yeah, Whopper missile code display.

1:03:59SPEAKER- I was sad to read that they broke that thing down

1:04:01SPEAKERafter the movie finished production.

1:04:03SPEAKERI know movie props don't last,

1:04:05SPEAKERso nobody wants to store that stuff,

1:04:07SPEAKERbut that thing is so cool.

1:04:08SPEAKER- Especially back then, people wouldn't have kept them.

1:04:10SPEAKER- Yes, but with this 8080.

1:04:14SPEAKER- I guess that'll do it for us this week.

1:04:15SPEAKERWe will see you all next week.

1:04:18SPEAKERBye, everybody.

1:04:19SPEAKER(upbeat music)